Among a Crowd on That Night
by wallscrolls
Summary: It probably would have been a lot less complicated if there hadn't been nearly so many people at the festival this year.


**A/N:** Evidence I've had a massive writer's block: this is a birthday fic for a friend. Said friend's birthday was in February. Better late than never, right? Right.

* * *

"Eh? No yukata?!"

Kido shot Kano an annoyed glare that was tinged with the slightest hint of a blush. "Wh-what's with that strong reaction? I never said I was going to wear one…"

"But we're going to a matsuri! Wearing yukata is an important part of the experience!"

For his part, Kano was already dressed in a dark grey outfit, giving her a much more intense stare than she was okay with. Kido felt her fist clench on reflex, but managed to hold the instinct down. "It's fine anyway, isn't it? You're wearing one."

"That's because I thought it would be most cute if we matched!"

… One punch wouldn't hurt him too badly.

Though as she watched him cringe in pain, she found herself vaguely surprised that he was actually wearing a yukata after all, and not just using his power to present himself as wearing one. It wouldn't be the first time that he'd worn something in appearance only, but maybe the yukata wasn't too annoying for him, or something like that.

"Just because it's only going to be the two of us, don't go making it into something weird."

Though they'd tried to plan ahead, Seto and Marry both were busy for the evening, leaving just the two of them to visit the festival together. Maybe Kido should have been more upset about it, but watching Kano straighten up and fix the neckline of his clothes, she found herself thinking that maybe this wouldn't be too annoying after all. Though the more she had to deal with Kano for anything, the more annoying it always seemed to be, and yet she never seemed to come out of any of those experiences thinking that she hadn't had fun, somehow.

"Ah, Kido, are you perhaps into boys who show a little more skin?"

With a startle she realized she hadn't taken her gaze away from the place where the two halves of his yukata met together on his chest, and before he could see her face turn bright red, she planted another fist into his side. "Don't say such stupid things…!"

* * *

"It definitely wasn't this crowded here last year, was it?"

"Even for this festival, there seems to be a lot more people…"

They found themselves pressed together the moment they stepped off the bus and into a sea of people. The crowd around them was nearly overflowing the road, obscuring the tightly-packed rows of booths on either side. There wasn't room to move forward, but the two of them were pushed away from the bus anyway, and soon they were swept up in the slow, leisurely movement of the crowd as it drifted along the road.

"Well, this is kind of nice in a way, isn't it? There's so many people, so it feels so lively!"

"There's way too many people…"

"Then in that case, it's good that there's only two of us so that we're not making things even worse!"

"There's so many people that another two wouldn't be any different."

"If everyone thought that, though, the crowd would be twice as large!"

"It's definitely twice as large as last year."

"I bet you just don't remember last year correctly!"

"I'm certain there's many, many more people than before—aah!" Suddenly she stumbled right into Kano's shoulder as someone bumped her from behind.

"Hey, Kido, you should grab my hand so we don't get separated!"

Kano was fully expecting to get hit for that. Beneath his power he tensed, waiting for the fist against his ribs or the shoe against his leg. But it didn't come. Instead, he felt a tug on his sleeve as Kido gingerly gripped it.

"… Eh?"

"D-don't you 'eh?' me!" Kido's gaze was glued to the ground and she felt her face starting to heat up. "In this crowd, it'd be bad if we got separated, since our cell phones probably won't work either! And, it was your suggestion in the first place…!"

"But Kido never listens to my suggestions! Does this mean I've been promoted to second-in-command? Ah, you know, I actually said to hold my hand, not my sleeve, so maybe you should—!"

"D-do you want me to hit you?!"

But even as she said it, she pressed her face into the back of his shoulder.

She really wasn't handling the crowd well, was she?

"Well, since I'm second-in-command now, I'm saying that we're going this way!"

"You can't just decide things on your own like that!"

But he was already walking forward, and though Kido hesitated for a moment, she quickly followed behind him, still clutching his sleeve like a scared child following their guardian.

There was something delicately vulnerable about it, but even Kano didn't comment on such a thing.

They made their way through the crowd quietly, moving along at the slow pace, until Kano finally moved to the side and paused. "Here we are!"

"Hm? 'Here', where…?" When Kido finally lifted her head, though, she was greeted by a wall of faces staring back at her. She gave a small jump before realizing a moment later that Kano had lead the two of them to a mask-selling booth.

"I thought that since you didn't want to wear a yukata, you could at least get one of these! Maybe it could even be something like a memento!"

But she was only half listening to the words, staring up at the rows and rows of artificial faces. Superheroes, anime characters, monsters out of video games and some other familiar characters from nothing in particular. Smiling faces, brave faces, scary faces, all these fake expressions that children wore so they could pretend they were better than they really were. It was so tempting to wear a mask instead of one's own face.

"… —with this one, Kido!"

She turned at the sound of her name, but it was an automatic, unconscious reaction. Kano was smiling at her. Smiling, with that grin that was just a little too cheerful to be believable, a little too wide to not hurt if it was being held for so long.

Living with him meant she saw masks all the time. Masks that she couldn't tell were masks, and true expressions that she couldn't tell were true.

Why the hell had Kano dragged her to this booth?

"… What's that look for?"

That smile was gone for a moment, she realized, replaced with a look of confusion. Ah, she'd gotten lost in her own thoughts. "It's nothing." She let her gaze drop to the plastic mask in his hand that he was holding out for her. It was some character she'd seen pictures of, but didn't know well enough to even remember what show it was from. Some super sentai series, maybe, or another toksatsu. "… I'm not wearing this one. I don't even know the character."

"Hm? Ah, but this show is really popular right now! And this guy, you see, he tries to be the leader, but he's not really suited for it, you know? But since he's the oldest, he tries to protect everyone else, even though he's one of the weaker ones on the team. But every time he goes into this form, he acts big and strong for all of them! I thought it would suit you, since it matches your hoodie!"

Kido felt something tighten in her chest, and grit her teeth. "Don't say things suit me just because they're purple…" But the way that her heart was starting to ache meant that it wasn't just because it was purple, didn't it? It was a story that resonated with her own fears and insecurities. It was, perhaps, a mask that suited her a little too well. "… Idiot."

"Ah, then how about you pick out one for me, too! Go on, be as mean as you want! Look, you can even make me the bad guy from that movie we saw last month!" He reached up to grab the mask he was referring to, but before he could reach it, Kido grabbed his wrist and started pulling him back towards the crowd.

"Come on. I'm getting hungry."

* * *

Though she hadn't actually been that hungry, by the time the two of them made it away from the takoyaki booth, food in hand, it was nearly half an hour later.

"I don't get how anyone can stand crowds like this… Where do we even go? There's no side to stand on…"

Kano gave a small tug on her sleeve. "I bet if we head that way, there will be less people on the outskirts of the park!"

Kido made a face. "It's going to take a while to get there, though…"

"Then we'd better head over there quickly, before our food gets too cold!" He let go of her and started to move through the crowd ahead of her, clutching the food tight so as to not let someone bump it out of his hands. Ah, but they didn't give him a cover for these, so he also had to be careful about spilling them. Really, this was so inconvenient… "Hey, Kido, maybe we should try to slip between two booths instead, to get out of here quicker."

There wasn't any reply at all. He glanced over his shoulder to look at Kido pressed against his back, but instead of the familiar purple hoodie, he caught sight of an unfamiliar blue yukata and a guy he'd never met squished against him by the throng of people.

"Ah…"

They were separated already.

* * *

Kido sat on the small fence on the edge of the parking lot, watching the occasional group come or go from the festival, trying not to shiver despite the warm air of the summer night. Ah, it had been a bad idea after all, to come to such a crowded place when it was just the two of them. She clutched the small plastic tray with her share of the takoyaki, only two pieces eaten. The rest had long since cooled.

Once again she glanced to her phone, but it seemed that there were still too many people for her to get proper service, even this far out of the crowd.

"… I bet that idiot just decided to keep having fun at the stalls."

She pulled her hood up over her head, her eyes going red as she activated her ability. That's right; Kano wouldn't bother searching for her, so she didn't need to bother staying where she could be found. She wasn't a child anymore; she could handle this sort of thing on her own. And if it meant the two of them had fun separately, that was fine, wasn't it? They didn't need to be together to do that. Festivals were for having fun.

This… wasn't fun at all…!

She felt tightness welling up in her throat, but then a loud noise from overhead caught her by surprise. On instinct she looked up. But rather than seeing bright colors or even the stars, the whole world went dark. "Eh?"

"Found you! Now it's Kido's turn to be the demon!"

The voice surprised her enough that she gave a small shriek and stumbled forwards, dropping the rest of her takoyaki as she spun around. Sure enough, there was Kano, still holding his hand where he'd put it to cover her eyes a moment ago and grinning like it had been a game the whole time. She felt her face go bright red as she realized how much he'd startled her. "K-Kano! Don't do that!"

"Hm? Ah, you're using your power! That's good; it'd be bad if someone heard that noise and came to investigate, you know? 'Oh, what terrible sort of things was that boy doing to that girl', people might think!"

"W-well, yeah, but I—!…" She paused for a moment, finally able to think over the rush of adrenaline. "Yeah, I am, so… how did you find me?"

"Well, you know! I've had to find you a lot of times while you were using your power! So maybe it's something like a hunch? I just thought you'd be here!"

He looked so cheerful as he said that. She ducked her head and clenched her fists, mumbling to the ground so he couldn't hear it. "If you knew, you should've come sooner…!"

Above their heads, another firework exploded, and then a third. Kano lifted his head. "Ah, look, they're actually starting! Since I made it in time, we can watch the fireworks together! Isn't that lucky?"

But he felt some pressure against his chest, and when he went to lower his gaze, he found a hooded head in the way.

"… Kido?"

"Don't say anything, idiot."

She wasn't sure if she was crying. She definitely wouldn't admit to it, even if it were true. But for the moment, she just wanted to lean against him, to take comfort in Kano's presence.

"But, ah… I'm kind of short, so having you stand right there is a little uncomfortable…"

He bumped his chin against the top of her head as he tried to lower it again, and the mental image made her give a soft snort of amusement. "Fine, then."

She moved a bit and instead settled next to him, leaning against him perhaps a bit more than she had to as she finally lifted her gaze to watch the explosions of colors in the sky above.

"Takoyaki?" She looked down again to see he still had a mostly-full tray, himself.

"It's probably gone cold."

Nevertheless, she took one and put it in her mouth.

As expected it had long since cooled, but even still, Kido could detect just the slightest bit of warmth on the bottom from the heat of Kano's hand.


End file.
